Dog Breath

It's often a nasty thing.  But when it comes to Conker, dog breath isn't.  his breath is neutral or slightly meaty, I think it smells nice.  Juneau's breath has a tinge of "dog" to it but it isn't bad either.  Sasha on the other hand... Don't go sticking your nose in her mouth.  It does not smell good.

These are Sasha's teeth.  I don't have any good ones of Juneau's since she is intolerant of people grabbing her mouth like that to compare, but her teeth look almost exactly the same.
While Sasha's teeth don't instantly look nasty, I've seen many dogs with far worse, they are still gross enough for me to want to do something about it.  She has large deposits of tartar on her upper canines and carnassial teeth.  There is a bit on her molars as well but not as much.

Unfortunately Mom is one of those:  "Well I've never had to brush my dog's teeth before so why should I do it now?"  Types.  I attempted to explain why a dog's teeth should be well taken care of but she was still blah blah blah about the brushing thing.  Which by the way, was not what I was talking about.  Even after I dropped the price on how much it might cost to get their teeth cleaned at the vet if we didn't do anything about it she still had the same mentality.

So I've decided that I'm going to get rid of the tartar myself.  I've heard good things about Plaque Off and are probably going to try that first.  As soon as more room opens up in the freezer I'm going to buy a rack of beef ribs for the Girls as well since those ribs I gave them when I got here helped a little.


*whine*  The bed isn't made!  *whine*


Stupid dog.
Anyways, I've found the Plaque Off at the Grange for something like $18.  That's not too bad of a price compared to some online sites and so far it's the only place I've been able to find it.  And if it works, $20 is nothing compared to what might happen if nothing is done about their teeth.

Plus Conker, since he's an idiot and doesn't chew his food, is beginning to get some plaque on his molars and I don't want it there so he can try it out too.  So when I get back from Lake Tahoe I'm going to pick some up and see how well it works.

Gearlist for Tahoe

I figured I'd post this here since it's dog related.

Photodump

I was retarded yesterday and took well over 200 pictures, I need to do something with them so I'm going to spam the blog with some of the better photos.  The brighter colored ones are when I had the manual mode on.  The faded ones are from auto, which still sucks like noneother.

This is probably my favorite.  Of Conker's butt.

Next up we have foamy-mouth Juneau!

Still foamy.

Notice how her expression doesn't change.

My favorite derp dog.

Sasha is hard to take pictures of.

Conker lookin good.

He decided that playing fetch was no longer beneath him.

His expression changes a little more than Juneau's.

Derp.

Juneau's ball. (notice how foamy it is)  And a Sasha nose photo-bomb.

Juneau and her foamy ball.

And that's it!  Oh wait one more.

Conker's new habit

First, a picture of Sasha.

I really wish this turned out better.  But alas, my stupid point-and-shoot fails me again with it's unfunctional focus.

So Conker has taken to whining to get things.  Not only does he continue to chirp but he adds in a whine here and there so it's doubly obnoxious.  His most recent offenses are:  

The door isn't open wide enough, it must be opened further.  Whine! 

The bed isn't made.  I cannot lay on bare sheets, they are not soft enough.  Whine!

The fedora is in my way, is must be moved.  Whine!

Dog, it's my door and I like it in that position. Your muzzle fits though, open it yourself.  It's my bed, if I don't want it make it, too bad.  MY FREAKIN HAT!  Don't you dare touch it.

The Dog Door

Conker has issues with the dog door.  He doesn't like to step on things and if you put something like a towel in front of the dog door he won't come through.  Instead he will poke his head through the flaps, look at you then go back out and bark in annoyance.  I am the only one who can get him to come through when something is on the ground in front of it.

He does the same thing if nothing is on front of the door but Younger-Taller brother is.  Well, not particularly in front of it but down the hall a bit in one of the chairs near the computer.  Conker will spot him and stop and see what he does.  If younger-taller brother moves even the slightest bit Conker will jump back through the door and bark.  Younger-taller brother has turned this into a sort of game, and again I am the only one who can get Conker to come through if younger-taller brother is there.


In other news...


I finally hooked up my old speakers (and sub-woofer!) to my computer.  Right in the middle of a documentary about Beethoven I might add, and man am I glad I did that!  Everything is so much better now, especially the piano music I listen to pretty much constantly.
The only problem is I used a splitter so I could still have the other speakers (for surround sound) since the treble and voice is better with those than the old ones, so in order to control the volume I have to use two separate knobs and getting it just right can take a while.


In other other news...

We going to see the last Potter flick in about 45 minutes.  I really hope it's good.

Random Dog: Mac

I've only met Mac a couple times but he is such a cute, sweet little guy that I can't help but write about him.  Mac is roughly 8 months old?  I can't remember, but he's still very young.  He is a Maltese mix and is very fun to watch.  He will run like mad around and around the other dogs then stop, spin, run and stop and spin again then take off running across the park.  He will dodge under, behind or in front of other dogs and normally gets a pack chasing after him.  Then he will walk over to the tables, hop up and be loved on by all the people at the park.

Mac is a type of small dog that I might be able to pull off owning.  The only "flaw" that I can think of is the barking.  He barks, yaps really, which I can't stand.  He will run up to the fence and yap at people or dogs on the other side.  his owner told me he also yaps at home for no apparent reason.  That's too bad since that is also something I can't stand.

Anyways, he is a very neat little dog.  He's about half Conker's size but can be faster at times.  Conker loves to chase him around and wrestle if he decided he's suddenly in the mood for playing.


In other news...

The girls ran out of their Lamb flavor yesterday.  They haven't tried the Wetlands (duck?) yet so that's what I grabbed at Mini Pet Mart today.  One of the employees dogged me down and demanded to give Conker a treat so I let him.  He is really fascinated with Conker and loves to ask questions about the Shiba Inu breed every time I come in.  He is beginning to seriously conciser getting one despite the negative things I've told him about them.  (I always warn curious people about what Shibas truly are) so one of these days I'm going to get up a list of good Northwest breeders and give it to him so if he does get one it's from a good place.  (If you know of some tell me who they are, I'd like to know as well)

So the Girls like usual were enthusiastic about their kibble.  I'm still not too sure but I believe they've liked the salmon flavor the most but their poops were best on the lamb.  I'll compare it to the duck and see how that goes, but I doubt I'm going to stick to any one formula since rotation is a good thing.

I've calculated out that each 15 pound bag lasts roughly 3 weeks with the girls.  Juneau eats 2 1/2 cups (she's a ton more active now) and Sasha gets about 1 cup.  I've also discovered that the 15 pound bags cost $27.99 at MPM and the 30 pound bags of TOTW cost $40 at the grange.  So after this bag I'm most likely going to be getting the larger bags at the Grange since the smaller ones don't really last too long.

Riverside Park

Today Conker and I went to Riverside Park.  I haven't ever been here for anything other than Boatnik and since we went hiking yesterday I figured today would be a cool down day.

Riverside park is pretty nice.  It's not huge but it's a good size.  The Boatnik fair is held here afterall, complete with rides, food and all that.  Anyways, it was a nice shaded walk with relatively few people so Conker wasn't bothered by anyone.  There was plenty of new smells for keep him busy for the few who did ntotice him.

The Rouge River itself is actually not too easy to get down to.  The bank drops down pretty steeply and there is no actual shoreline on this stretch of the river.  Conker and I found a boat launch and visited the river from there. 

With a little encouragement (me stepping in and showing him it was okay) Conker walked into the Rouge and pawed at the water.  Then he saw the geese.  Oops.

After visiting the river we walked around the park for a short while then headed to the Grange. Conker's never been in there before and he did okay.  He still doesn't really like to go into buildings but the Grange is more open than Mini Pet Mart.
I found a Ruffwear Approach pack for $24.99 though!  It fit Conker PERFECTLY but I lack the money plus with Conker's LP he's not going to be carrying a pack anytime soon.  I might hop in there and get one anyways just in case Conker has surgery or I get another Conker-sized dog in the future. 

On our way home we stopped at the dog park.  There was a Labish dog named Morgan who I've never seen before there then a man with a Cocker Spaniel and some GSD mutt who I have met.  I didn't stay too this time.  On our way out of the park Conker surprised me by taking off into the creek.

Okay not too surprised but instead of his normal splashing in paw-deep water he jumped into the deep end and swam!  He almost never does this on his own nor looks like he's having fun if I make him go in.  But this time it was all him and he was loving it.  Weirdo.

We went hiking today

Conker was like this the whole way up.

I don't wanna climb the stupid hill!

Today is scheduled to have "scattered thunderstorms" but that really means just rain here and there with possibly one thunder boom if that.  It doesn't thunder here, maybe once a year and we already had that.

But it was a nice day, in the mid 70's with a pleasantly cool breeze, so I grabbed conker and headed up to Dollar Hill.  I'm still badly out of shape and it took a short while to get to the cell tower.  We didn't stay there long and instead headed down to some neat-o rocks to take a break.

Conker sniffed around on the rocks for a bit then decided he wanted to keep going.  But I made him get a drink first then told him NO, you CANNOT chase the freakin rabbit that just ran in front of you. He was good and didn't.  So we headed down the hill at a faster clip than last time.  Okay, not fast but really fast.  I was basically running like a dumbass down the hill with my backpack flopping everywhere, my camera threatening to fly down the hill and my shoes (which were attached to the backpack) hitting me in the butt.  My guess was they wanted me to go faster.

Conker thought this was the best part of the hike!  He took off at full speed down the hill when he could, mouth open, tongue hanging out and tail streaked out behind him.  When he's having a lot of fun he runs like that but also throws in a couple bounces every few steps.  He's not running in the picture above since I never had my digital out when he was (too busy trying not to die) but it's close enough.

Oh, also, did you notice something in the two pictures of Conker where you can see his whole body?  Something's missing, I'll give you 100 internet points if you can tell me what it is.

Anyways, it was a fun little hike that went a lot faster than normal since we  RAN down the dang hill.  Except in one spot where it's killer steep.  Conker decided to do a run-by attempt at knocking me on my ass and waited until I was about 10 feet in front of him then bolted down the hill and slammed into my knee.  Luckily for him I've got good balance even on super steep grades and didn't fall backwards onto his stupidness.  The worst he did was send himself spinning into a tree.  

Lookit Grant's Pass.  It's surrounded by awesome mountains.  And rain.

Oh yeah it's my sister's 16th birthday today.  And on our way home from the hike I saw these three girls walking down the street so I freaked them out by honking at them.  They yelled then realized who it was and yelled some more then chased me and demanded a ride home.  I was nice and picked them up.

Conker, since he was such a good boy today, was given one of his birthday trachea chews.  I normally like to cut them up into smaller pieces but he was good enough to have earned 2/3rds of one instead of 1/3rd.  He made a nasty mess on my bed though, but did a okayish job at cleaning it up.

The TABLE has been Conker'd

That's right.  The table.  Conker has figured out that there's FOOD on the table, and that we tend to leave plates of scraps on the table. And that he can get ON TOP of the table by jumping up on a pulled out chair or stool.  Mom said he licked the breakfast plates clean.  So clean that they were shiny.  Thankfully it was just eggs and ham and he's had both before with no problems so I doubt he'll have any digestive upsets.

I was asleep when this happened.  I just found out a couple minutes ago when Mom came home from shopping for my sister's 16th birthday (tomorrow).

This table conquering has opened up a whole new door.  We've got a "bar" that the stools sit near and food is often left on that bar or it's used for preparation.  The bar is attached to the counter by the sink and the main counter food is prepared on.  If Conker generalizes stool + high place = food, I might have a counter surfer on my hands.
I attributed this event to the beginnings of Conker's true Shiba self-awakening.  He is only a year old and has plenty of time to bloom into what a "normal" Shiba is known for.  Dun dun dun...


In other news...

Juneau is a snake hunter!
Yesterday she was onto something in the bushes.  Conker joined in and when I saw his tail wagging I knew the snake was actually there.  About 10-15 minutes later Juneau dashed out of the bush and grabbed the terrified snake and shook it, then dropped it and tried to grab it again.  Janelle (oldest sister, now going back to Phoenix) grabbed the snake before Juneau could then gave it to me.  The snake was relatively unharmed, though quite frightened, and Juneau had no interest in it once we had it.  She was still looking for the "real" snake on the ground. Conker though, he's seen me get four snakes before he did and knows that when it's in my hand the game is over.  He tried and tried to jump and snatch the snake but failed every time. 
I gave the little snake a good examination to make sure it didn't have any gaping wounds.  The end of it's tail was gone, Juneau bit it off (I'm familiar with snake anatomy and it still had the "back end" so it was good) and since it wasn't bleeding profusely I released it on the other side of the fence.  Conker was again pissed that another snake escaped him and Juneau got two eggs instead of one in her kibble that night.

Homemade toys and a slight "redesign"

I made Conker a toy out of a strip of Pac-man fleece and a tennis ball.  I stabbed some holes in the tennis ball then stabbed the fleece through and knotted them on either end.  I made what I now call a Four-Legged Spiderball.

The Spiderball is the perfect toy for Conker.  He can fetch, tug and shake all he wants with just one toy. These are the kinds of toys I need for him since he doesn't do well with single-purpose toys.  The best part about the Spiderball is that it was completely free!  I prefer to make toys I see in the stores (if possible) instead of spending roughly $10 on something that's eventually gonna break and need to be replaced. 

The Spiderball can easily be chewed apart so it's not recommended for heavy chewers.  The Spiderball can be used in water (floats) and is compatible with a Chuckit so dogs who love water or like to retrieve will enjoy this toy.  The Spiderball can also be flung by the fleece legs so even those heavy retrievers without a Chuckit can still get some good distance from it.

I plan on making several more Spiderballs with different types of legs.  I'll be sure to post about them when they arrive.



In other news...

I made the banner image blue instead of plain ol' black and white.  (I know how to do that with real prints HOMG it's so freakin fun) so if you think it looks funky let me know and I'll mess with it a bit more.